


When the Sky Falls

by Lue4028



Series: Psychotic Break [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Pining John, Post-Reichenbach, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4690199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lue4028/pseuds/Lue4028
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, an inpatient in administrative segregation, locked up all day at the psych ward at barts, somehow manages to flirt his way into a relationship with Mary, his nurse, so she lets him out one day- the day that'll be his last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Sky Falls

**Author's Note:**

> THis is Part 3 of Psychotic Break. Part 2 is still in the works.

###  **'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Psychotic Features'**

_Some health professionals and researchers think that some people who have PTSD can develop symptoms of psychosis but do not meet the diagnostic criteria for a mental illness such as schizophrenia.They say the vivid flashbacks experienced by people with PTSD can go on to develop into the type of hallucinations that are associated with psychosis. People may develop delusional beliefs and begin to experience paranoia, particularly if they have been tortured or attacked, because they are constantly reliving the event as a result of the intrusive memories of PTSD. Because the flashbacks are so realistic, so threatening and difficult to explain, people search for a meaning to understand what they are. They may come to believe that someone really is talking to them from the dead, or that they are really being followed, for example._

_Some health professionals and researchers think there is a distinct type of psychosis that is trauma-induced in this way. Some have suggested there should be a separate diagnosis of ‘post traumatic stress disorder with psychotic features' to describe people who have PTSD who experience some of the symptoms of psychosis.Those in favour of a new diagnosis say it would mean new treatments could be developed and tested to specifically meet the needs of this group of people and address the trauma they have experienced._

It’s a beautiful day. The central courtyard at Barts is vibrant at lunch hour, the fountain sparkling in the center under a canopy of bright green European beech trees, nurses, administrators, and doctors passing by.

_You didn’t notice._

John is sitting on a bench outdoors, wearing jeans and a jumper instead of his inpatient uniform. He studies his shoetips, flecked with water droplets, legs outstretched in front of him and crossed one over the other.

_You didn’t notice,_

_how that entire night while I was making love to you,_

_I was actually thinking about how much it would hurt you_

_when I killed myself the next morning._

Mary sits down beside him in her blue v-neck nurse attire and badge, her hand overlapping his.

“Taking me outside in broad daylight. Pretty bold,” he remarks at the spurts of water, cascading from tier to tier until they pool at the base.

“Why? It’s not like you have a sign on your head that says _psych ward_. You blend in quite nicely doctor,” her fingers link around his wrist. She leans forward and John smiles gently at her without reciprocating, playing the waiting game he learned in secondary school that drives girls crazy. She smirks, so she wants to play too. “On the outside you can almost pass as a normal person,” she says leaning forward more. John hms, his once-playful eyes now withdrawn.

He doesn’t close his eyes when she kisses him. Eventually he turns his cheek, detached and not himself, and stares absently at the pathological department building.

_I was imagining the look on your face when you saw me in a pool of my own blood._

“What’s the matter?” she asks and John snaps out of it.

“Not in the mood?” she asks and John actually smiles at the silliness of the question.

“Actually, I was just thinking we should get a room."

“My place or yours?”

John blinks.

“You don’t mean,“ John looks confused, “Won’t they notice I’m missing? It’s malpractice. If they find out it was you—“

“Oh come on, you don’t have to be shy John Hamish Watson,” she says, pulling him to his feet. She read his clipboard. She knows exactly what buttons to press. “It’s two tube stops over on the Central line. No one will miss us.”

John can’t really tell if a taxi is honking at them or at the other cars or just plain broken. The traffic is awful at any rate, bumper to bumper and even the bikers have dismounted in favor of worming their way through on foot, so it’s a J-walking free-for-all. They cross through a half-dozen red signals, which John thinks is the funnest thing in the world, although it’s hardly considered unusual in central London to do so and mildly suggestive that he should get out more— if he didn’t spend his days locked up in an asylum, that is.

It’s a beautiful day, despite the noise and congestion. It’s been a while since he looked up and saw the sun, not artificial LED lights.

John nearly looses his step when suddenly confronted with the staircase to the underground, and so does Mary when they swerve under the overhang with a bit of excess momentum, and they giggle at each other like 9-year-olds. Mary leads him down the steps of St. Paul’s tube station through hoards of tourists, her hand around his, pulling him forward, and when they duck the ticket scanner John feels the trill of being two stops away. They dart after a departing train that specifically tells them to _please stand clear of the doors_.

And then something wakes up inside him, paralyzing and short circuiting his movements, running cold through his veins down to every digit in his right hand and he feels emboldened with calm, sudden conviction. Change of plans.

Mary looks at him in confusion as the doors close between them.

A few narrow misses with snappy taxis and he finds himself back at saint barts.

It really is a beautiful day.

The trees purify the air, removing the taint of cigarette smoke and car exhaust, infusing the breeze with an autumn scent, while the fountain makes it taste delicious and watery. He saunters through the courtyard near the periphery of the buildings, enjoying his short-lived freedom, reminiscing about the graduate years he spent here toward his professional degree. He can see his youthful memories play out in front of his eyes, like shadows hiding frolicking and playing. He shops short.

There’s that settled, serene calm again, hard in his veins, the stilling of his heartbeat he does instinctively when he’s about to pull the trigger. And he turns around. Looking over his shoulder, the entrance to the pathological department is gaping wide open, waiting for him. He smiles with a cold familiarity at the building front, it’s never-changing, preserved stone face.

_I wasn’t making love to you,_

_I was murdering you in the worst possible way—_

As he’s ascending the stairs, there are all kinds of alarms that should be sounding, telling him that it’s bad, that it’s dangerous, that he shouldn’t. But it’s pin drop silent. There’s only that old, dogged command from brain stem to foot, that tells him to take another step.

_—the kind where you walk yourself off a ledge and kill yourself._

_It was textbook revenge. Or don’t you believe me?_

The suspense is starting to become more real now, as he approaches the roof access. He feels the nerves, just barely manageable, dampened down by a clear and set mind. He rests his forehead against the cool metal of the door with the detached alarm and electrocution warnings, and shudders, shivers, at the thought of what he’s going to do. He stares at the handle, traces his finger around it. He presses down and the thrill of it giving way..

_That’s all I really wanted John. Tearing you apart is better than sex to be honest._

The breeze is stronger on the rooftop, coursing through his hair. He breathes in through his nose.

_Blood spatter on sidewalks John. It’s all we’re good for._

It’s a beautiful day.

_Because you couldn’t save me could you?_

There are those last few steps. The counting down of the seconds.

 _You couldn’t_ **save** _him could you?_

 

The sound of his life ending,

_So what good are you?_

 

but everything else carrying on like normal,

_To anyone- to anything-_

Like the beautiful, beautiful day that it is.

_If you couldn’t save_

_the one person_

_who mattered,_

_and instead he died_

_saving you?_

 

 

 

 

And then…

_Oh the indignity, doctor._

_You might even say_

_That you are the sham._

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Correction. And then his phone rings.

Does he even have a phone?

He checks his pocket and draws out Harry’s old Nokia 97.

How is it even charged?

The screen flashes, displaying a restricted number.

John hesitates taking it, considering he’s a little preoccupied at the moment. He’s a hair’s breadth away from sparing himself a life’s worth of monotonous, pointless suffering, and he’s not likely to get another chance at that after well.. after all this. But he can’t bring himself to touch his thumb to the ‘reject call’ icon, for obvious reasons- the uncanny likeness to that singular, fatal moment around which his life revolves like a plastic pinwheel.

_It’s a fucking telemarketer John._

Since he can’t push the red button, he tries moving his finger over the green button, and it obeys. He stands there, paused on the elevated perimeter of the rooftop, listening to the good morning ringtone neither he nor his sister ever bothered to change.

_Oh for the love of!_

His thumb slides over the silvery keys then presses down, lifting the phone to his ear.

_Put the phone do-_

“ _Hey Uh..._ ”

It’s really starting to come off like a prank call, but it is his voice, the voice John used to play on repeat at odd hours of the night, “ _Mycroft said that I should call you.. I don’t really know why.. That’s rather unlike him, to compromise the whole operation._ ”

John doesn’t know what he should say.

“ _Oh- he’s texting me again. Can I put you on hold for a second?_ ”

“Uh yeah. Sure,” he obliges easily enough, though he’s struck dumb and trying to feel his limbs.

He looks around him and spots a little CCTV camera with a big round lens, perched above him on an electrical cable. He’s not exactly surprised.

After a brief pause that feels like it should be filled with elevator music, “ _Oh, so.. it looks like you’ve broken the fourth wall,”_ the caller resumes awkwardly, finally on board. Fourth wall. As if in a play. Should he take a bow?

“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” though reluctant to admit exactly how far gone he is, the truth is he has no idea what’s fiction and what’s not, or where the line between the two is. If he’s breaking rules it’s not because he’s been looking for any walls, “They put me on so many kinds of antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants I’ve lost track. I could be talking into a banana right now and I wouldn’t know the difference.” It’s not actually funny.

“ _You got yourself admitted to a mental institution? How did you end up there?_ ” the voice remarks in honest surprise. If only it were surprising. If only he were infallible- no perfect pressure point, no fatal Achilles heel. But judging by the appearance of the sheer dropoff where his toes end, it’s not the case is it?

“Is this a recording?” he asks off-hand, tilting his head into the reciever.

“ _A recording?_ ” the voice sounds incredulous, “ _How could this be a recording?_ ”

“It’s just… your voice. It sounds so much like you,” he explains, horribly nostalgic.

“ _I would think it should_ ,” he replies, a little aghast, “ _When did you get so paranoid? It doesn’t suit you._ ”

“I bet you would know exactly what I would say,” John entertains the thought, in fond memory his friend, “For my note.”

That triggers some mild alarm on the other end, “ _Now.. John, this isn’t a note—_ ” his voice quavers despite sounding stern, having risen a decibel.

“Either, you’re the voice in my head that doesn’t want me to die—” John says slowly, so that the words come across frighteningly articulate.

“ _You’re not going to die—“_

“Or you’re just,” John continues, finding it difficult to speak, possibly because he’s looking at the beckoning pavement below, remembering how his heart broke apart and bled out on that swept-clean sidewalk. “trying to stop me from following you,” His knees are about to buckle any second.

 

“No,” John has him laughing nervously, “No, you’re very mixed up John—“

His mind is racing, grasping a straws, “What was.. what was that thing you said about friends and bridges and the the jumping off?”

 

“There—” John chokes, “was— so much blood. It was everywhere.” He’s not thinking straight anymore. He feels like his brain is on fire. All he sees is Sherlock’s blood up and down and all over the walls in that stupid disturbed happy face and he can’t think straight anymore.

“It was _ketchup_ John, And only one jar—" the voice is annoyed, exasperated, and a bit hysteric, " _Your memory is exaggerated_ ,” .

“It was my fault. It was all my fault,” he repeats, like his head-splitting headache will stop if he agrees with it.

“ _I’m not dead John!_ ” the voice wants to strangle him. John wants to strangle _it_ , or scream. Or cry. Or possibly both.

 

“How many times I’ve imagined you were there when you weren’t—“ John goes off, then stops sharply. He can't believe it's arguing with him about this, after acknowledging the fourth wall and that its not real.

“I would… wake up at night, hearing violin music… was it insanity… how I haunted your grave, searching for something that wasn’t there, asking for miracles when there was no one to answer? Was it insanity to cling to the vain, irrational hope— that you would— you would hear me—“ His voice sounds like a tape recorder, a bit glitchy at the end.

“Is it so wrong all I ever wanted was to hear you say those words?” he asks, getting back on topic. His tone is dreary and bleak, like he still thinks no one is listening, like he's still talking to himself, “Is it so wrong that it’s delusional?

“It was those kinds of questions that put me here.”

 

Silence on the other end, it seems to be processing. “ _Listen.._.” it says finally, catching John’s ear, “ _I’m sorry if I have caused you some.. emotional distress.._ ” the voice seems to be trying to level with him, groping for the right verbiage.

Emotional distress? After a brief spell of shock, he’s amused, his lips bending upward into a smirk.

“ _It’s not, John,_ ” the speaker’s voice continues, “ _In response to your question. You had no way of knowing, but no, it’s not delusional._ ”

John smiles bitterly, enjoying the thought before he ruins it. “Yes it is. Of course it is.”

 _"John, it’s me,"_ it cries desperately, _"living, breathing evidence to contrary!_ " Oh please. This isn't the most tenacious delusion he's had, but it certainly is the most melodramatic.

“I’ve been diagnosed with psychosis. Honestly, what are the chances that you’re real?” there’s a sort of hopeless, despairing laughter beneath his words. If figments had feelings, it'd be cruel.

Another pause, perhaps the voice has finally relented and he can get on with the sidewalk spatter.

“ _A hundred percent_ ,” it says haughtily.

Great. Brilliant.

“Yes well… hallucinations talk.” Was there ever hallucination that wasn’t self-assuring? “and your voice is… too good to be true.”

“ _John, don’t hang up._ ”

“Sorry if this causes you any… emotional distress.”

The caller is agitated now, vexed, frantic, as if in panic. “ _I staged my death. It was a sham just like everything I was accused of being- the note, the fall, the funeral. It was all in effort to protect you, John. I can’t- I can’t have you die because of it—_ ” such a distraught, passionate voice. In some perverse way, it almost makes sense to go and kill yourself over something that beautiful.

“You would know exactly what to say to make me stop,” his voice is haunting, downright possessed. He's not well, that much is frightening obvious.

“ _John listen to my voice—_ “ He is. It’s certainly not a bad way to go, wondering if it were a flavor whether Sherlock's voice would be red velvet or dark chocolate.

“Do you think I’m dreaming right now?”

“ _John, listen to me, the pavement below you is very real—_ “ He seems tense.

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” John says as he wavers over the brink, wind breaking against him, no less bold nor sassy even in the face of death.

“ _Yes I would, but only because I’m on it._ ” Sherlock bursts out of the urban density, and John retracts in surprise. He’s just a blur of cape and dark hair at this height, running out on to the pavement just below, his hero. If John were to step over now, he’d probably kill them both.

“Sherlock..” John voices weakly, and Sherlock’s silhouette scatters in the buildup of water in his eyes. He can't go over now, not with Sherlock's image standing in the way like roadkill.

 

“John!” he yells in that low tibre, though it comes across muted. He puts the phone back to his ear again.

“ _I am aware that my pleas are a bit empty…_

“ _…and may very well fall on deaf ears, seeing that I didn’t listen to yours. I know it’s not fair, but_ _I have to ask, as a favor, to me, that you spare me the pain I’ve caused you._

" _I wouldn't be able to endure it with half the strength you have. If you jump now, it won't be a suicide John, it'll be a double homicide_."

 

John doesn't know what to do. He tries to step off, lifting one foot over, but he's paralyzed. It's an illusion and still he can't do it. Why hadn't he thought of this so casually when Sherlock was jumping? It's fucking brilliant. To break the fourth wall, he has to go through Sherlock first, the one thing he can't, his Achilles heel. Why is his mind so torturous?

" _John!_ " John hears Mary's voice though the receiver. She's amoungst the crowd of congregating onlookers spaced out behind Sherlock, trying to get the phone.

" _He's **busy** at the moment,_ _you'll have to call him back_ ," Sherlock quips back.

“ _I'm his girlfriend--_ "

" _Ok, that's fine, but I'm his boyfriend. I have seniority--_ "

They're arguing. Sherlock is arguing with Mary. Either they are both hallucinations or Sherlock... is not.

How is it possible?

If there was one thing he could be sure about throughout the entirety of his time being hospitalized, waving in and out of delusion, it was Sherlock being dead. Because Sherlock being dead was the source of the the delusions, the substance of his nightmares, the pin in the pinwheel of his down-spiral into insanity.

Is this the part where the wakes up? Please just let it be the part where he never wakes up again.

_"John!"_

_"JOHN!"_

 

 

 

 

 

When John opens his eyes Sherlock is above him, looking quite shaken.

“Am I dead?” he asks with a soft, wry smile, looking fondly at Sherlock. He's flat against the rooftop, and the side of his head is soar. He must've fallen. Hopefully not the wrong way?

“No. Of course not.”

“This is heaven.”

“If it were I wouldn’t be here.”

“Heaven without you wouldn’t be heaven,” John beams, reaching for him, “would it?” Sherlock snatches his hand, keeping it locked almost forcefully. His face is dangerous. Temper, temper.

“Enough of that. I’ve had it with your delusions and paranoia and pleas of insanity. You actually almost killed yourself, do you know that?” Sherlock snaps, sounding like a CO, even paternal. The anger in his voice seems to get through to John.

“I just wanted to be with you,” John explains wistfully, feeling defeated.

Sherlock looks frustrated. “John.. Don’t you feel me? I’m real,” his fingers harden on his wrist uncontrollably, like he's at the end of his rope.

“Yes,” he concedes that much, “I can."

“But I can’t..." he says, hesitantly touching his fingers to his face, "believe it.”

“Why is it so difficult to imagine, compared to all the crazy ideas in your head?” Sherlock demands rhetorical and aloof and a touch patronizing. His icy blue eyes are scathing and penetrative as ever. It's so vivid.

“It feels like you could vanish into thin air,” John says, eyes running over him in fascination. Sherlock lets go a little, possibly because he likes the attention.

“I’m not going to vanish into thin air,” he responds tiredly, eyes much softer now in response to the gentleness of John's hand.

“Like you’re made of glass.”

“I’m not made of glass John,” he says against one of John's fingertips, as his touch moves down his face.

“Or a cruel trick.”

“Not a trick, John.”

“Or a dream that I could wake up from at any second.. and you’d be gone,” John looks at him sadly, “How would I.. how would I know?”

 

“Don’t be stupid," Sherlock snaps in an odd duality of harshness and fondness, "I am not a figment of your imagination and you know it because you love me, not the monsters in your head. You know it because you _can’t_ imagine me. You know so little of how much I— how I adore you, John, how could you do me justice?" Sherlock's eyes look desperate to try to get through to him, yet they also weigh heavy with something that looks strikingly like guilt, "You can’t even imagine me saying any of this, can you? You’re so infuriatingly stupid.”

It's strange, John feels like that sounds rather affectionate, but his smile falls and he looks away. It's all very unrealistic. He knows what that means. Fool me once, fool me twice.

“Look at me,” he demands, turning John face so their eyes align, “Can’t you recognize me, of all people?”

 

He's heart broken! John thinks this is about the time he should start laughing, but it's something in those eternally serious eyes, that commands him not to. He knows him. He recognizes him, that severe unrelenting stare.

Oh. _Oh_. John looks at his eyes over and over, jaw going slack. It's him.

Now. Now the forth wall is breaking, crumbling, falling apart. That's what he had meant.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this," John says.

“See you like what?” Sherlock asks.

“Because I’m.. I’m sick,” he naturally struggles to admit to him, the very opposite, a paragon of rationality.

“No," Sherlock looks and sounds deeply affected, tightening his arms around him, "You’re okay now, John. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. If you leave again I—“

“I’m not going to leave you," Sherlock silences him, his voice vibrating against John's ear, "I’m not letting you out of arms reach for a good measure, you can be sure of that.”

“Please don’t leave,” he says again, all watery eyed and Sherlock can only smirk in amusement.

“Please don’t,” John demands, failing to see whats so funny. Is he irrational? Is he paranoid? Or is the joke on him? Is there another fourth or fifth or sixteenth wall?

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he returns softly.

“Please,” he says, all redundancy, sounding nothing short of traumatized.

“Wouldn’t think of it John,” Sherlock sighs tenderly, drawing him back into a hug in efforts to reassure him.

“Not again.”

“Never. Never again. I promise.”


End file.
